Composers
Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Tue, 03/18/2008 - 4:10pm.
I was driving to work one morning a few weeks ago and NPR ran a story about violinist Tasmin Little. The story was about a 
series of recordings she has made that feature solo, or naked violin, if you will, that she is offering as free downloads on her website. Check out the NPR broadcast and then hit Tasmin’s site for some wonderful music – at no charge!
Speaking of wonderful music made by talented women, the Sinfonietta’s March 30-31 concerts are dedicated to music made, conducted, and composed by women. Chicagoclassicalmusic.org has a “hot deal” listed for this concert that you can access if you are a registered user of this site.
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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Thu, 03/06/2008 - 11:10am.
I have a favor to ask of you. In November 2008 The Chicago Sinfonietta will partner with the Chicago Humanities Festival in musically exploring the year’s Festival theme, “THINK BIG”. We invite you to help us realize our 'big idea" for a concert by joining us in selecting the most transformative classical music compositions ever written -- works from various eras that truly changed the rules and affected everything that came after. We will perform two of the selections at Chicago's Symphony Center on Monday, November 10th at 7:30 p.m. And to "change the game" even more, we hope to either present a live streaming broadcast that evening (so you can hear the winning selections regardless of where you are) or post the performance as a downloadable video file on our website.
Let your voice be heard! A panel of experts has shared its ideas for “game-changing” nominees and you can vote right now at the
Chicago Sinfonietta’s website. Make your selection from the experts' list, or if you disagree, feel free to write in your own.
Thanks for voting – and please pass this link on to others!
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This week, the CSO is performing
Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar for the first time. It was such a mind-blowing experience that it motivated me to begin blogging about “Classical” music in Chicago here at CCM.
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At the National Gallery in Washington DC last week, an unusual piece of music had its premiere. Called "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," the work takes its title from the Wallace Stevens poem of the same name. Several things make it unusual: (1) the piece has thirteen movements; (2) it is composed for high school men's chorus and piano, not unique in itself but because each is stylistically an entity unto itself; (3) the movements can be arranged aleatorically, a la John Cage, by the throw of a die (and was in this case by one of the female singers present, who threw a pair of fuzzy dice).
Most unique of all -- I don't think I've ever seen this anywhere else -- each of the thirteen movements was written by a DIFFERENT composer. In this case, the roster of composers includes some of the giants working in the field today: Stephen Paulus, Libby Larsen, David Conte, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (of "El Hambo" and "Four Shakespeare Songs" fame, for those longtime CAC fans reading this), Daniel Gawthrop, Rollo Dilworth, Matthew Harris, Daniel Gawthrop, Tarik O'Regan, Stephen Hatfield, Ola Gjielo, and Christopher Delp.
That is twelve, and I am the thirteenth. Woo hoo! What an honor. I got stanza # 2 to compose:
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Thanks to everyone who logged in to ChicagoClassicalMusic.org during our relaunch for the last couple of weeks. Below is the list of randomly selected winners of our free ticket and subscription giveaway. If you are a user on this list, please expect an email from me with more information on how to claim your prize. If you haven't won a prize, keep checking back on ChicagoClassicalMusic.org for future giveaways and more!
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Prize |
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| hautbois614 |
4 full length CDS |
Cedille Records |
| ghalsell |
4 full length CDS |
Cedille Records |
| Jeff_Turk |
4 full length CDS |
Cedille Records |
| fuerzamaya |
4 full length CDS |
Cedille Records |
| victor408 |
4 full length CDS |
Cedille Records |
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| flyingpickle |
2 tickets - Romanticism and Rock n Roll |
Chicago a cappella |
| sdixon17 |
2 tickets - Romanticism and Rock n Roll |
Chicago a cappella |
| lmissitzis |
2 tickets - Romanticism and Rock n Roll |
Chicago a cappella |
| joycemcgreevy |
2 tickets - Romanticism and Rock n Roll |
Chicago a cappella |
| hwebb82 |
2 tickets - Romanticism and Rock n Roll |
Chicago a cappella |
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| Charles R Mattenson |
A Level Subscription for 2008 season |
Chicago Opera Theater |
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| Mary Prindiville |
Front Balcony Subscriptions (3 concerts) |
Chicago Philharmonic |
| heidilevin |
Front Balcony Subscriptions (3 concerts) |
Chicago Philharmonic |
| Frank Lee |
Front Balcony Subscriptions (3 concerts) |
Chicago Philharmonic |
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| debrav |
Three Concert Subscription |
Chicago Sinfonietta |
| chapulin |
Three Concert Subscription |
Chicago Sinfonietta |
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| Norm Raidl |
2 tickets |
Chicago Symphony Orchestra |
| myoirene |
2 tickets |
Chicago Symphony Orchestra |
| lmaloney |
2 tickets |
Chicago Symphony Orchestra |
| Edie Fitts |
2 tickets |
Chicago Symphony Orchestra |
| Impressionist |
2 tickets |
Chicago Symphony Orchestra |
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| Jeremy Kazan |
1 season ticket |
Fulcrum Point |
| Natalie Holden |
1 season ticket |
Fulcrum Point |
| Robbie Dee |
1 season ticket |
Fulcrum Point |
| devlinm |
1 season ticket |
Fulcrum Point |
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| JimInLoganSquare |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| tgraham |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| dontrombone |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| Robert E. Zeitner |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| hrhtina |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| Chicago Girl |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| Boo Radley |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| bruno_fasat |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| Adrianm |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
| lmatnip |
pair of season tickets - 8 concerts |
Grant Park Music Festival |
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| Behty Harrison |
two section a seats for GIGI |
Light Opera Works |
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| watsons |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| Christopher.doherty@gmail.com |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| elyse |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| ebseifert |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| Carole29a |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| internalmethods |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| dennyg309 |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| tom cusick |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| Linda Rosencranz |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
| KatyK |
2 tickets |
Rembrandt Chamber Players |
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John Adams was in the office for 90 minutes this morning - primarily to see (above) the set and costume designs for A Flowering Tree, but also to look at all the other things we are putting together around the performances of the very beautiful new opera next May. It was a happy session all round and John was clearly very pleased with everything. Thats a good start! Below you see him with three of our key staff, Colleen Flanigan, Marla Krupman, and Kara Kane, respectively directors of marketing, development and education. Between them they manage to provide huge additional animation to our whole enterprise of opera production. John is an enthusiastic contributor to and supporter of all their efforts.
This afternoon we had our annual staff Christmas party complete with Secret Santa gift exchanges. I will not publish to photos of this exciting event here......! Regrettably as a result of this event I had to miss a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Chicago Classical Music website. That was bad of me but my staff come first. I had hoped to slip away at 4 but one thing led to another including the excellent round of carol singing where our excellent pianist director of finance Dave Wise displayed his exceptional talent at the keyboard. But please look at the splendidly relaunched CCM site. It is doing very well and making a valuable contribution to musical life in this city.
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This week's guest blogger is the renowned composer Stacy Garrop, whom we have had the pleasure and privilege of commissioning to write two pieces for Chicago a cappella this season. Her very brief bio is that she's an Associate Professor in Composition at the Chicago College of Performing Arts of Roosevelt University. Her more substantial bio is at her website, www.garrop.com. She writes below about being commissioned to write new choral music. Enjoy her eloquence! -- Jonathan Miller, Artistic Director, Chicago a cappella
Getting Back to My Roots: Adventures in Writing Jewish Music for Chicago a cappella
An Offer I Couldn't Refuse
Last spring, Jonathan Miller asked me if I'd accept a commission to write two new religious-themed works for Chicago a cappella's 2007-08 season. Busy as my composing schedule is these days, I have a distinct weakness for writing choral works and will find a way to squeeze more time out of a day to write them. And who can refuse an opportunity to work with the singers of Chicago a cappella?!
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Okay, I have a question for you, based on my lifelong love of spirituals.
Are African-American spirituals "classical music"? If so, why? If not, why not?
And if some arrangements are more "classical" than others, how come?
I'm not asking about the political-correctness side of the question -- rather, more about the musical aspects.
This is not a trick question. I've got my own ideas about it (which I'll flesh out more next time), but I am more interested in what the rest of you think. The whole thing struck me as a little odd, so I thought I'd ask the community what it thinks and feels about this.
Let us hear from you.
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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Wed, 10/31/2007 - 10:39am.
Last week Daniel J. Levitin wrote
an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times about how odd it is that classical music audiences are discouraged from expressing their enjoyment of music through movement. Levitin asserts that moving to music is innate and that we would probably have more fun if we moved freely.
I couldn’t agree more. For me, it follows the “don’t clap in between movements” rule at classical music concerts that I sometimes find so counter-intuitive. Would it be distracting if half of the people at a concert got up to dance or sway to the music? In some instances, yes. But there are times when the enjoyment of a piece is enhanced by moving to the beat, and if the entire audience joins in doing so, then it can ascend to a higher level altogether.
A great example of this takes place every January at the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Annual Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Maestro Freeman closes this concert every year by inviting the audience to stand up, hold hands, sing, and sway to the pulse of “We Shall Overcome”. The act of moving as a group, and singing together makes this one of the most emotional moments of the season, year after year.
Maybe there are other opportunities like this that would make our concerts more fun and fulfilling. Can any of you share similar moments that you may have experienced in the concert hall?
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Submitted by Ravinia on Thu, 10/25/2007 - 3:09pm.
World premiere will be part of Ravinia’s 2009 celebration of the Lincoln Bicentennial under the banner: “Mystic Chords of Memory”
Ravinia Festival has commissioned award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones, who most recently won a Tony for his choreography for Spring Awakening, to create a new full-evening work, tentatively titled A Good Man, inspired by Abraham Lincoln and celebrating the slain president’s 2009 bicentennial. The announcement was made today by Jones and Ravinia Festival President and CEO Welz Kauffman in a joint press conference before the Lincoln death bed at the Chicago History Museum. The work will be performed by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.
“The image of Abraham Lincoln’s long, broken body stretched across what was to become his death bed will be at the heart of the work,” Jones said. “I wonder about the paradise our country could have been if Lincoln had lived to complete the reconstruction of America, but which we are only left to imagine. I would like to share that vision with audiences and then remove it in order to expose that great distance between what is and what could have been.”
The press conference concluded Jones’s daylong trip to Springfield and Chicago that provided him the opportunity to connect with real locations and relics from Lincoln’s life in Illinois, including the old state Capitol, Lincoln’s home, tomb and the Lincoln Library and Museum. Jones also was introduced to the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. As a member of the commission, Kauffman sees the bicentennial as an opportunity for community involvement that will encourage guests and artists from the entire “Land of Lincoln” to seek out Ravinia, which for years has worked toward diversifying audiences and programming with an eye toward commissions and premieres by such luminaries as John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Mark Morris, the Joffrey Ballet and Philip Glass—not to mention the first opera from South Africa, Princess Magogo.
“Bicentennial celebrations by their very definition are about a single moment in time, but any artistic celebration of the great Abraham Lincoln requires something truly timeless. That’s why we sought out Bill T. Jones,” Kauffman said. “Bill is emblematic of Ravinia as he, too, thrives on music, dance, theater, community development and reaching out to diverse audiences. There’s also a bit of Lincoln in him—not just his charisma but also his respect of the past and demands of the future. He and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company enjoy international acclaim, and I would love to see his view of Lincoln shared on distant shores. I can’t wait to experience Lincoln through his eyes.”
Kauffman said that because Lincoln looms so large as a historical figure, it’s easy to forget just how recently Lincoln lived and made decisions that will forever impact this land. Lincoln was killed less than 40 years before Ravinia, North America’s oldest music festival, was founded by a railroad company.
Details on the project, which is under development, will be released as the work progresses, but the work will be central to Ravinia’s 2009 celebration of Lincoln’s life and legacy (which will include other events throughout the season).
Jones said, “I live with the uneasy feeling that society has shaped me as a result of something that was stolen from us when Abraham Lincoln was killed. The cynicism and alienation that I have to cope with in my own head and heart arose as a result of a climate built systematically by such a strange turn of destiny as his assassination. Libraries are full of scholarly texts dedicated to the legacy of this singularly American man. I want to create a dance theater work that investigates a handful of key moments from his remarkable life and subject them to a process whereby song and memory deliver us beyond the boundaries of space and time.”
After working together for more than a decade as a critically lauded dance team,
Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane (1948-1988) formed their own company in 1982. Since then, the 10-member company has performed in more than 200 cities around the world and is recognized for its collaborative work with artists ranging from painter Keith Haring to the Orion String Quartet. The Harlem-based company is also celebrated for its educational endeavors. Its acclaimed dance works include Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land, Still/Here, Blind Date and last year’s Chapel/Chapter.
In addition to winning the Tony for Spring Awakening, Jones received the 2007 Obie Award and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Callaway Award. He’s also received the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven; the 2005 Wexner Prize, the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Harlem Renaissance Award, the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize and the 1994 MacArthur “genius” grant. In 2000 The Dance Heritage Coalition named Jones “an irreplaceable dance treasure.” Jones began his dance training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY), studying classical ballet and modern dance.
The San Francisco Chronicle says, “Some choreographers are born dance-makers whose genius manifests in the steps themselves. And some choreographers are geniuses who just happen to choose dance for their primary mode of expression. Bill T. Jones is of the latter variety, and the dance world is fortunate to have him.” The Chicago Tribune concurs, “Bill T. Jones is a dancer abundantly blessed with musicality. Whether he is poised in classical ballet positions or sashaying about in a quick vaudeville buck-and-wing, he appears to find the best movement for the right moment.”
Ravinia Festival’s 2009 season will reflect many aspects of the celebrated and sometimes controversial 16th president through programming across the many genres and disciplines regularly presented at America’s oldest music festival, including classical, jazz, gospel, music theater and dance. These programs will be united under the banner “Mystic Chords of Memory,” a quote from Lincoln’s first inaugural address. Ravinia received a $70,000 grant from the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. The grant will help Ravinia commission up to 10 chamber music compositions, each setting or framed by Lincoln’s words. Other programs will look at the music and composers from Lincoln’s era; the global influence of this important leader; the legacy of poet Walt Whitman; and jazz, gospel and spirituals.
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
---Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
-submitted by Adriana Avila, Marketing Manger, Ravinia Festival
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